Commentary on current affairs. The literature that runs around us everywhere, unwritten, the songs of bird: mockingbird, sinsonte in Spanish, Soccoro Mockingbird. Etterligne. Sounds, tunes and words that inspire. Reactions that inspire. Sometimes take a U-turn, U-vingsomBolt.

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Friday, June 22, 2012

Utøya, Anders Breivik and justice

Norwegians were not glued to the live transmission of the Anders Breivik case that has been going on for the last 10 weeks. Many said there is a lot more to life than Anders Breivik. They did not want him to have so much airtime but to uphold the fact that this is a matter of public interest, the hearing of his case was still transmitted live daily. Not even today when the court hears the last of the case and the judges are left on their own are people that enthusiastic. He is not a hero.

The judges will pronounce their sentence perhaps before 22 July or maybe not. Their judgement may come later. Some Norwegians will be at home, many more will be on holidays abroad. Those at home will hold a memorial for all those who died. The 77 people all of them innocent and unsuspecting that such terror was ever possible in Norway. It has been termed as the worst killing ever since World War II. NATO and the European Union and many countries in the world, among them also countries with huge Islamic populations, suffer the burden of these killings with Norwegians.

It has been a very difficult year. It was the darkest summer that ever was here that day of 22 July 2011 ironically in a season when the sun does not set here in Norway, the season of the midnight sun.

This has been referred to all the time as the Anders Breivik case. The words "terror attack" have come up again today. But many times they disappeared and if they did not, they did not sound like terror or terrorist whent it is said at home. For there, the US immediately steps in and takes suspects in renditions to lands unkown. They say they take them to Guantanamo Bay. If Andres Breivik was called Adam Sheikh he would be there now, I think, even if he held Norwegian citizenship. This was a huge act of terror. It involved all the things that make many around the world get renditioned. Some of them are innocent and they suffer for years, for life. Many of them who will never have the comfort of Anders Breivik. He smiled, lost no weight and took time so often to say he preferred not to be asked some questions, for example, about his connections in the UK.

Here a bomb was made by Anders Breivik. Here use of internet was at its highest for all these machinations to work out as he planned. There were journeys back and forth in the acquisition of the bombing materials. There were flights to other countries. And then, here in Oslo a bomb exploded in a government building very next to Apotekegata Bus stop. It was just what happened when the American Embassy in Nairobi was bombed in 1998, a car drives in and parks, and minutes later, every thing is in the air. Here assassinations were planned and executed. It was done by Anders Breivik and he says he is not insane. He says he did it for political convictions that sound very fundamentalist.

If as at the start some people worried this man had turned out to be from Afghanistan, Pakistan or any stan or Somalia, we know where this case against terror would be. We may not all understand the law, but it is relevant to ask why these laws are not coming into play here. They are not laws I like. Many people I know have suffered under them endlessly. But does not this terror, this stuff that Anders Breivik is made of, fit like a glove for the aims of the law against terror- which operates internationally? Please guide me.